Exo 31:16  Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. ASV

Exo 31:16  Wherefore the children of Israel shall keep the sabbath, to observe the sabbath throughout their generations, for a perpetual covenant. KJV

Exo 31:16  And the sons of Israel shall observe the Sabbath, to do the Sabbath for their generations; it is a never ending covenant. LITV

Exo 31:16  Therefore the sons of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, to observe the Sabbath throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant. MKJV
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                                 COMMENTARY

  Who did God command to keep the sabbath?  

Uhh-h... Hummmm... At's a tuff 1. Can I ask the audience?

  Why did God have to command the ~children of Israel~... not "all men in all ages"..  to keep the sabbath if the sabbath was in force from creation and people were supposedly already keeping it?  Although no one can find any place in the entire Bible where anybody kept the sabbath before Exodus 16 and even that passage is debatable as to whether or not that was the regular weekly sabbath which was not given until Exodus 20. It seems clear that no Israelite ever kept any sabbath before Exodus 16 yet there is not one shred of evidence that any of them were put to death for not keeping it. If they say that there -was- a sabbath all along but the sanction of Death was not added until Exodus then guess what... that means that the law -Changed-! What now becomes of their "UNchanging moral law of God" paradigm?

  Here it says that Israel was to keep it as a perpetual -Covenant-. Why was it called a Covenant? Because, it was the ~Sign~ of the Covenant. Which Covenant? The Covenant of the Ten Commandments which God made with the Children of Israel. Ex 34:28. Next verse. As the ~Sign~ of the Covenant of the Ten Commandments it represented the whole covenant. That's why it was a very part of that Covenant;.. the 4th Commandment. That means that people who place themselves under the requirement of sabbath-keeping are of necessity placing themselves under the Old Covenant of the Ten Commandments. For one thing, unless such people are -Ethnic- Jews such a practice is entirely unbiblical. That is to say that they have no Biblical basis upon which to engage in such a practice. God commanded the -Children of Israel- to keep it as a perpetual covenant and no one else.

  Second, it is evident that a person cannot be under more than one Covenant at a time and if they are under Moses by their own choice then they are -outside- of Jesus Christ and His New Covenant in which case they are demonstrating that they are unsaved! That is to say... to require the observance of a "sabbath" [modern-day professing evangelicals' view of 'sabbath' is far removed from the  description of a true Biblical sabbath] is to place one self under Moses and to do that is to -Reject- Jesus Christ and His New Covenant. This is what ~All~ sabbatarians do. This is further enforced by the Biblical truth that the Covenant of Ten Commandments, which was encapsulated in the Sign of that Covenant, the sabbath, ~Required~ the Levitical Priesthood. That means that as long as the sabbath was in force the Covenant of Ten Commandments was of necessity in force and as long as the Covenant of Ten Commandments was in force the Levitical Priesthood was of necessity in force and as long as the Levitical Priesthood was in force any priest who was not of the line of Levi and the Aaronic Priesthood was an Illegal priest. And since the Lord Jesus Christ was not of the line of Levi & Aaron but was of the tribe of Judah that makes Him an Illegal priest. And if that's so then His atonement is null & void and there is no salvation.  Therefore, to require the sabbath is to reject the Lord Jesus Christ and rob saints of their salvation. This is exactly what ~All~ sabbatarians do.

  Third, the sabbath was a -Perpetual- or Everlasting Covenant throughout all Israel's generations. That means that it was to last until the "generations" of Israel came to an end, which event took place with the 1st Advent of Messiah and His Atonement. The NT tells us that when Messiah gave up His Spirit the vail of the Temple was torn apart from top to bottom. That was a demonstration of God that the Old Covenant was fulfilled in His Son and abolished. The entrance into the Holy of Holies, which was the very presence of God was now open to All men everywhere, not just Jews through the Levitical Priesthood. This is exactly what all sabbatatrians -Reject-. That means sabbatarians  ~Reject~ the Christian Gospel!

Can people who Reject the Christian Gospel be Christians?

Exodus

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